Five Kick-Ass Isolated Guitar Tracks

25 Apr 2013 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

collins

(Source: NME)

1. Lynyrd Skynyrd – ‘Free Bird’

It’s  undoubtedly one of the greatest guitar performances of all time: the late Allen  Collins ripping through the monster-sized solo from Lynryrd Skynyrd’s ‘Free  Bird’. And you thought it was hard to play on Guitar Hero…

2. Michael Jackson – ‘Beat It’

Here’s  Eddie Van Halen solo-ing on Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’. Steve Lukather of Toto playing the iconic riff, also available isolated on YouTube – just one  reason why Gibson Guitar Corporation named him among the top 10 session  guitarists of all time.

3. The Stone Roses – ‘Love Spreads’

If you  were in any doubt that John Squire is up there with the greatest British  guitarists, listen to this incredible isolated guitar part from ‘Love Spreads’.  You can find the other instruments isolated on YouTube too, meaning if you’re  incredibly bored you can open all of them at the same time and pretend you’re  with them in the recording studio.

4. The Beatles – ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’

It’s not as cleanly isolated as some of the others, but the sound of  ol’ slow hands Eric Clapton guesting on George Harrison’s ‘While My Guitar  Gently Weeps’ is that of a master at work. He really starts to make it wail at  about two minutes in.

5. Red Hot Chili Peppers – ‘Under The Bridge’

Stunningly intricate guitar-work from John Frusciante on this: more  fragile than you might imagine.

Something I’m a Little Chapped About

17 Apr 2013 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: ,

cowboy 1

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 9,730 people currently work as livestock handlers (cowboys). Of these, 3,290 are listed in the subcategory of spectator sports, which includes rodeos and circuses.

That leaves roughly 6440 legit working cowboys. In other words, since the invention of barbed wire fences, there are several times as many dudes wearing cowboy hats as a singing costume than there are real cowboys.

Now just imagine they all chose to wear fireman helmets instead. THAT is how ridiculous they all actually look, except for our desensitization to it as something so commonplace.

In my opinion.

They Might Be Giants’ ‘Icky’ Video

12 Apr 2013 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts, On a Lighter Note Tags: ,

From They Might Be Giants’ latest album, Nanobots.

Directors David Cowles and Jeremy Galante have perfectly matched the absurd humor of songwriters John Flansburgh and John Linnell in their animated depiction of that guy everyone warns you not to be.

Pakistani Musicians Play Amazing Version of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Classic, “Take Five”

12 Apr 2013 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: , ,

(Reprinted from Open Culture)

How’s this for fusion? Here we have The Sachal Studios Orchestra, based in Lahore, Pakistan, playing an innovative cover of “Take Five,” the jazz standard written by Paul Desmond and performed by The Dave Brubeck Quartet in 1959. Before he died last year, Brubeck called it the “most interesting” version he had ever heard. Once you watch the performance above, you’ll know why.

According to The Guardian, The Sachal Studios Orchestra was created by Izzat Majeed, a philanthropist based in London. When Pakistan fell under the dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq during the 1980s, Pakistan’s classical music scene fell on hard times. Many musicians were forced into professions they had never imagined — selling clothes, electrical parts, vegetables, etc. Whatever was necessary to get by. Today, many of these musicians have come together in a 60-person orchestra that plays in a state-of-the-art studio, designed partly by Abbey Road sound engineers.

You can purchase their album, Sachal Jazz: Interpretations of Jazz Standards & Bossa Nova, on Amazon and iTunes. It includes versions of “Take Five” and “The Girl from Ipanema.”

Drumming Great Bernard Purdie and his ‘Purdie Shuffle’

11 Apr 2013 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bernard Purdie is the most recorded drummer in the world, having played on over 4,000 albums. In the above video he demonstrates the “Purdie Shuffle”, a pattern he came up with as a youngster and inspired by the pushing/pulling dynamics of a train.

We’ve all heard variations of the Purdie Shuffle, even if we didn’t realize it had a name. Bernard himself played it on Steely Dan’s “Home at Last”, from their Aja album:

Jon Bonham employed a variant on Led Zeppelin’s “Fool in the Rain”, from the final album he recorded with the band prior to his death in 1980, In Through the Out Door.

More recently, Death Cab for Cutie used the beat on the song “Grapevine Fires”. In deference to Purdie, Death Cab drummer Jason McGerr resists calling his work on the song a Purdie Shuffle. As he told the New York Times recently: “It doesn’t matter how much I practice, I will never play that shuffle like Purdie. It’s because he has an attitude that seems to come through every time. He always sounds like he’s completely in charge.”

Sounds like a fair approximation to me, though I’ll admit that’s from a non-drummer’s point of view.

And finally, the late, great Jeff Porcaro created his own variant for Toto’s “Rosanna”. Porcaro’s pattern, said to combine the Purdie Shuffle and the Bo Diddley beat, has itself become known as the “Rosanna Shuffle”.

Lyric of the Weak: Fatboy Slim, “The Rockefeller Skank”

09 Apr 2013 Leave a comment

skank

Image by Ed Cyphers

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